Rob Lester
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robertlux.bsky.social
Rob Lester
@robertlux.bsky.social
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Formerly powered by vegetable oil & music on the open road, now driving innovation at the crossroads of tech and creativity. Music & social networks, AI & art, game design & tech.
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Reposted by Rob Lester
talyarkoni.com
i asked Claude to write a Barthelme-esque short story with the aesthetic sensibilities of "The School", and it gave me this. i mean. i mean.
For six months we watched the pigeons building their civilization on top of the skyscrapers. First came the architecture: nests made not just of twigs and paper, but of lost earbuds, expired credit cards, and the tiny silver bells from cat collars. Then came their laws. "They have a supreme court," said Dr. Fernandez, who'd been studying them since the beginning. "Nine pigeons who sit on the ledge of the Chrysler Building and coo about justice." We didn't believe her at first, but then we didn't believe a lot of things that turned out to be true. The pigeons developed a currency based on blue bottle caps. They established schools where young pigeons learned to dodge taxi cabs and identify the most generous hot dog vendors. Some of us tried to join their society, climbing to rooftops with offerings of breadcrumbs and philosophy textbooks, but the pigeons regarded us with the kind of pity usually reserved for very small children or very old cats. "They're planning something," the conspiracy theorists said, but they always say that. Still, we noticed the pigeons holding what looked like town halls, thousands of them gathered on the roof of the public library, bobbing their heads in what might have been voting or might have been prayer. Our own civilization continued below theirs. We went to work, fell in love, lost keys, found keys, forgot anniversaries, remembered too late, all while the pigeons above us built something that looked suspiciously like a scaled-down replica of the United Nations building out of discarded takeout containers and stolen Christmas lights. Sometimes they dropped things on us: rejection letters for poetry we'd never submitted, tax returns from years that hadn't happened yet, photographs of ourselves sleeping that we couldn't explain. Dr. Fernandez said this was their way of communicating. We said Dr. Fernandez had been spending too much time on rooftops. The pigeons started their own newspapers, printed on leaves that fell upward instead… For six months we watched the pigeons building their civilization on top of the skyscrapers. First came the architecture: nests made not just of twigs and paper, but of lost earbuds, expired credit cards, and the tiny silver bells from cat collars. Then came their laws. "They have a supreme court," said Dr. Fernandez, who'd been studying them since the beginning. "Nine pigeons who sit on the ledge of the Chrysler Building and coo about justice." We didn't believe her at first, but then we didn't believe a lot of things that turned out to be true. The pigeons developed a currency based on blue bottle caps. They established schools where young pigeons learned to dodge taxi cabs and identify the most generous hot dog vendors. Some of us tried to join their society, climbing to rooftops with offerings of breadcrumbs and philosophy textbooks, but the pigeons regarded us with the kind of pity usually reserved for very small children or very old cats. "They're planning something," the conspiracy theorists said, but they always say that. Still, we noticed the pigeons holding what looked like town halls, thousands of them gathered on the roof of the public library, bobbing their heads in what might have been voting or might have been prayer. Our own civilization continued below theirs. We went to work, fell in love, lost keys, found keys, forgot anniversaries, remembered too late, all while the pigeons above us built something that looked suspiciously like a scaled-down replica of the United Nations building out of discarded takeout containers and stolen Christmas lights. Sometimes they dropped things on us: rejection letters for poetry we'd never submitted, tax returns from years that hadn't happened yet, photographs of ourselves sleeping that we couldn't explain. Dr. Fernandez said this was their way of communicating. We said Dr. Fernandez had been spending too much time on rooftops. The pigeons started their own newspapers, printed on leaves that fell upward instead…
December 16, 2024 at 4:48 AM
robertlux.bsky.social
Agreed!
December 14, 2024 at 3:14 PM